Leung, Ming Ming Grace. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2008. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 147-150). / Abstracts in English and Chinese; includes Chinese characters in appendix. / ABSTRACT (ENGLISH) --- p.i / ABSTRACT (CHINESE) --- p.ii / ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS --- p.iii / TABLE OF CONTENTS --- p.iv / Chapter CHAPTER 1 --- INTRODUCTION / Chapter 1.1. --- Background to this Study --- p.1 / Chapter 1.2. --- Purpose and Significance of this Study --- p.2 / Chapter 1.3. --- Organization of the Thesis --- p.3 / Chapter CHAPTER 2 --- LITERATURE REVIEW / Chapter 2.1. --- Introduction --- p.5 / Chapter 2.2. --- /n/ and /l/ in English and Cantonese --- p.5 / Chapter 2.3. --- /n/ and /l/ Variation in Cantonese --- p.6 / Chapter 2.4. --- /n/ and /l/ Variation in Hong Kong English --- p.7 / Chapter 2.5. --- Language Transfer --- p.10 / Chapter 2.6. --- English Perception and Production by L2 Speakers --- p.20 / Chapter 2.7. --- Task Type --- p.34 / Chapter 2.8. --- Linguistic Environment --- p.40 / Chapter 2.9. --- Language Proficiency --- p.43 / Chapter 2.10. --- Summary --- p.45 / Chapter CHAPTER 3 --- METHODOLOGY / Chapter 3.1. --- Introduction --- p.48 / Chapter 3.2. --- Research Questions --- p.48 / Chapter 3.3. --- Research Methodology --- p.50 / Chapter 3.3.1. --- Participants --- p.50 / Chapter 3.3.2. --- Materials and Procedure --- p.50 / Chapter 3.3.3. --- Data Recording and Data Transcription --- p.56 / Chapter 3.3.4. --- "Data Coding, Data Scoring and Data Analysis" --- p.56 / Chapter 3.4. --- Summary --- p.57 / Chapter CHAPTER 4 --- FINDINGS / Chapter 4.1. --- Introduction --- p.59 / Chapter 4.2. --- General Results in Descriptive Statistics --- p.60 / Chapter 4.2.1. --- General Finding of English Production and Perception --- p.60 / Chapter 4.2.1.1. --- Production of /n/and /l/ in Different Task Types --- p.63 / Chapter 4.2.1.2. --- Production of /n/ and /l/ in Different Following Linguistic Environments --- p.66 / Chapter 4.2.1.3. --- Production of /n/ and /l/ with the Presence of a Second /n/ --- p.68 / Chapter 4.2.1.4. --- Production of /n/ and /l/ by Three Groups of Participants --- p.69 / Chapter 4.2.2. --- General Finding of Cantonese Production and Perception --- p.72 / Chapter 4.3. --- Results of VARBRUL Statistics --- p.76 / Chapter 4.3.1. --- Result of Accurate Production of /n/ --- p.81 / Chapter 4.3.2. --- Result of /n/ to /l/ Variation --- p.83 / Chapter 4.3.3. --- Result of Accurate Production of /l/ --- p.84 / Chapter 4.3.4. --- Result of /l/ to /n/ Variation --- p.85 / Chapter 4.4. --- Descriptive and VARBRUL Statistical Results regarding Four Research Questions --- p.87 / Chapter 4.4.1. --- Data for Research Question 1: To what extent does /n/ and /l/ variation of Cantonese play a role in /n/ and /l/ variation in the onset positionin English? --- p.88 / Chapter 4.4.2. --- Data for Research Question 2: How significant is English perception for English production? --- p.91 / Chapter 4.4.3. --- "Data for Research Question 3: How do Cantonese speakers of English perform in different task types (word list, passage, and natural speech) and is task type significant for English production?" --- p.94 / Chapter 4.4.4. --- "Data for Research Question 4: Which linguistic and/or non-linguistic factors, such as the linguistic environment, the presence of a second /n/ within the same syllable, and English proficiency/university major, may have an influence on /n/ and /l/ production in English?" --- p.95 / Chapter 4.5. --- Summary --- p.99 / Chapter CHAPTER 5 --- DISCUSSION / Chapter 5.1. --- Introduction --- p.100 / Chapter 5.2. --- Research Question 1: To what extent does /n/ and /l/ variation of Cantonese play a role in /n/ and /l/ variation in the onset position in English? --- p.100 / Chapter 5.2.1. --- Discussion about /n/ and /l/ Variation in Cantonese --- p.101 / Chapter 5.2.2. --- Discussion about /n/ and /l/ Variation in English --- p.109 / Chapter 5.2.3. --- Transfer of /n/ and /l/ Variation in Cantonese to /n/ and /l/ variationin English --- p.113 / Chapter 5.3. --- Research Question 2: How significant is English perception for English production? --- p.117 / Chapter 5.4. --- "Research Question 3: How do Cantonese speakers of English perform in different task types (word list，passage, and natural speech) and is task type significant for English production?" --- p.124 / Chapter 5.5. --- "Research Question 4: Which linguistic and/or non-linguistic factors, such as the linguistic environment, the presence of a second /n/ within the same syllable, and English proficiency/university major, may have an influence on /n/ and /l/ production in English?" --- p.128 / Chapter 5.6. --- Summary --- p.137 / Chapter CHAPTER 6 --- CONCLUSION / Chapter 6.1. --- Introduction --- p.142 / Chapter 6.1.1. --- Pedagogical Implication --- p.142 / Chapter 6.1.2. --- Limitations of the Current Study --- p.144 / Chapter 6.1.3. --- Suggestions for Further Studies --- p.145 / REFERENCES --- p.147 / APPENDIX A / APPENDIX B / APPENDIX C / APPENDIX D

萬波. / 論文(哲學博士)--香港中文大學, 1998. / 參考文獻 (p. 183-205) / 中英文摘要. / Available also through the Internet via Dissertations & theses @ Chinese University of Hong Kong. / Electronic reproduction. Hong Kong : Chinese University of Hong Kong, [2012] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Mode of access: World Wide Web. / Wan Bo. / Lun wen (Zhe xue bo shi)--Xianggang Zhong wen da xue, 1998. / Can kao wen xian (p. 183-205) / Zhong Ying wen zhai yao.

MA / Department of Communication and Applied Language Studies / Orthographic symbols of languages represent specific speech sounds with their specific phonetic qualities. This research aimed at analysing orthographic representations of murmured speech sounds in the Xitsonga orthography. The qualitative approach was employed to examine the production of murmured speech sounds and their orthographic representations in Xitsonga. The analysis was based on data collected from interviews with speakers of the Xitsonga language, Xitsonga educators and lecturers who are themselves Xitsonga-speaking, Xitsonga authors and Xitsonga subject specialists, and also from existing literature by Xitsonga authors and language scholars. The study made recommendations that will help the development and revitalisation of the Xitsonga language and also benefit the speakers of the language as well as scholars and linguists.

Text in Xhosa. / Thesis (MA)--Stellenbosch University, 2002. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This study concentrates on the critical evaluation of persuasive messages. In doing this, four articles have been analysed according to two premises namely: the content premises and the process premises. The content premises concentrate solely on the theme of four articles which is the persuasive message towards the transformation of South Africa. In content premises emphasis is put on the cause to effect reasoning. The process premises focus on the three different types of processes that is: the needs, attitude and consistency. In the needs emphasis is put on the need for emotional security and on the need for reassurance of worth. In attitude emphasis is put on evaluative responses. In consistency emphasis is put on the course of dissonance and consonance. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Hierdie studie fokus op die kritiese evaluering van oorredende boodskappe. In hierdie navorsing is vier artikels ontleed volgens twee premisse, naamlik die inhoud premis en die proses premis. Die inhoud premis word ondersoek na aanleiding van die tema van vier artikels wat In oorredende boodskap gerig op die transformasie van Suid-Afrika verteenwoordig. In die inhoud premis word klem gelê op die oorsaak-na-effek redenering. Die proses premis fokus op drie verskillende tipes prosesse, dit is behoeftes, houding en konsekwentheid. In die behoeftes analise word klem gelê op die behoefte aan emosionele sekuriteit en op die behoefte vir versekering van waarde. In die geval van houding, word klem gelê op evaluatiewe response. In die geval van konsekwentheid word klem gelê op die roete van dissonansie en konsonansie.

Cette thèse traite de l'acquisition des consonnes par des enfants francophones monolingues. Son but est de montrer que l’utilisation des traits distinctifs et des principes qui leur sont associés (hiérarchie des traits, évitement de la marque, économie des traits) rend compte du parcours d’acquisition des consonnes en français. Le corpus de cette thèse est constitué des productions spontanées longitudinales (pendant 16 et 28 mois) de deux enfants francophones. L’analyse a dégagé deux grandes étapes dans le parcours d’acquisition des contrastes consonantiques. Chacune d’elle repose sur l’intervention d’un principe associé aux traits distinctifs. La première étape rend compte de l’acquisition isolée des contrastes opposant les consonnes, dont l’ordre est guidé par le principe de hiérarchie des traits, exprimé par leur robustesse : plus un trait est robuste, plus il sera acquis rapidement. L’acquisition d’un trait suppose également l’acquisition des deux valeurs de ce trait par l’intervention du principe d’évitement de la marque : la valeur non-marquée de chaque trait sera acquise avant la valeur marquée. La seconde étape consiste en la diffusion, à l’ensemble du système, d’un trait acquis de façon isolée. Cette diffusion est guidée par le principe d’économie des traits : plus un trait participe à l’économie du système, plus il se diffusera rapidement. Afin d’extraire de l’input de l’enfant, l’information utile nous permettant d’exprimer l’actualisation de chaque principe dans la langue, nous avons conçu des calculs de fréquence des traits. Nous avons établi un lien entre l’expression des principes de hiérarchie, d’évitement de la marque et d’économie, et ces différentes fréquences des traits dans le langage adressé à l’enfant. En appréhendant l’acquisition consonantique comme l’acquisition de contrastes au sein d’un système, nous avons modélisé le parcours d’acquisition des consonnes grâce aux traits distinctifs et à leurs principes associés, en le mettant en regard des travaux sur la structuration des inventaires sonores adultes. / This work focuses on consonantal acquisition of monolingual French-speaking children. Its aim is to show that the use of distinctive features and their associated principles (feature hierarchy, markedness avoidance, feature economy) captures the path of consonantal acquisition in French. The data of this dissertation consist of spontaneous longitudinal productions (during 16 and 28 months) of two French-speaking children. Analysis of the data reveals two main stages in the acquisitional path of consonantal contrasts. Each of these stages relies on the intervention of a principle associated with distinctive features. The first stage captures the isolated acquisition of contrasts between consonants. The order of the acquisition of contrasts is guided by the feature hierarchy principle, which is expressed by feature robustness: the more robust a feature is, the faster it will be acquired. The acquisition of a feature also implies the acquisition of its two values through the intervention of the avoidance of markedness principle: the unmarked value of a feature will be acquired before the marked value. The second stage of the feature acquisition path consists in the distribution of a feature - acquired in an isolated way - throughout the whole system. This distribution is guided by the economy feature principle: the more a feature participates in the system economy, the more rapidly it will diffuse. In order to extract the relevant information from the child’s input that allows us to express the realisation of each principle into the language, we designed feature frequency calculations. We established a link between the expression of the hierarchy, markedness avoidance and economy principles and the different feature frequencies in child-directed speech. By approaching consonantal acquisition as contrast acquisition within an entire system, we were able to model the consonantal acquisition path based on distinctive features and their associated principles, paralleling it with work on the structure of adult sound inventories.

Objectives: The hypothesis that a natural auditory psychophysical discontinuity contributes to a perceptual category boundary between voiced and voiceless English stop consonants was examined. Design: The relationships between voice onset time (VOT) phonetic boundary and gap-detection thresholds for conditions in which the sounds delimiting the gap were acoustically identical or different were examined in 18 native young adult English speakers. It was specifically hypothesized that between-channel gap-detection thresholds, in contrast to within-channel gap thresholds, would be better predictors of categorical VOT values for listeners. The stimuli used in the between-channel gap-detection task were designed such that dissimilar leading and trailing markers of the gap approximated a stop burst and a following vowel, both in terms of temporal and spectral relationships, while being devoid of phonetic identity. The stimuli used to examine the VOT measure were synthesized bilabial stop syllables in a continuum ranging from /ba/ to /pa/. Results: Statistically significant larger gap thresholds were found for the between-channel conditions than for the within-channel condition (p < 0.05). The center frequency of the trailing marker affected the between-channel gap thresholds with the thresholds improving as the center frequency increased (p < 0.05). Statistically significant positive correlations and predictive linear relations were found between VOT phonetic boundaries and between-channel gap thresholds (p < 0.05) but not within-channel gap thresholds (p > 0.05). Conclusions: A relationship between the phonetic boundary of voiced–voiceless speech sounds and the auditory temporal resolution task of detecting gaps placed within dissimilar markers, regardless of the center frequency of the trailing marker noise burst, was demonstrated. Detection of gaps between different nonspeech acoustic markers and categorical perception of VOT seems to share the same underlying perceptual timing mechanisms in native English speakers.

The goal of this dissertation was to investigate experimentally the phonetic qualities of the palatalized consonants of Standard Bulgarian. The term ‘palatalized’ refers to consonants (e.g., [tʲ, dʲ]) which are articulated with a secondary palatal gesture superimposed on the primary gesture associated with their plain counterparts (e.g., [t, d]). An acoustic study investigated the claim (Horálek, 1950; Choi, 1998; Ignateva-Tsoneva, 2008) that the palatalized consonants of Standard Bulgarian have undergone depalatalization, which was defined as the decomposition of a secondary palatal [ ʲ ] gesture into a palatal glide [j]. A cross-language comparison was performed. Russian (e.g., [tʲulʲ], ‘silk net’) and British English (e.g., [tju:lip], ‘tulip’) data served as a baseline against which the Bulgarian data (e.g., [tʲul], ‘silk net’) was evaluated. Subjects’ productions of words were recorded for acoustic analyses. The F1, F2 and F3 frequencies of the critical segments were analyzed with a Smoothing Spline ANOVA (Gu, 2002). The analyses indicated that Bulgarian palatalized consonants were identical to those of the Russian palatalized consonants, but different from the consonant-palatal glide sequences of British English. It was concluded that Bulgarian palatalized consonants have not undergone depalatalization. A perception study employed two variations of the gating task (Grosjean, 1980): audio-only and audio-visual. The results of the audio-only experiment indicated that Bulgarian and Russian listeners needed only the information associated with the palatalization portion of the consonant to identify it as palatalized. Bulgarian subjects did not need the transitions with the following vowel (Tilkov, 1983) to identify a consonant as palatalized. The Russian subjects of Richey’s (2000) experiment did not need the formant transitions either to identify the secondary palatal gesture. These findings provide further evidence that the palatalized consonants of the Standard Bulgarian have not undergone depalatalization. The purpose of the audio-visual experiment was to investigate if Bulgarian and Russian listeners use visual information to identify palatalized consonants. The results from this experiment were not as clear cut as those from the audio-only experiment. Factors such as insufficient visual information at earlier gates, as well as attentional load are being considered as possible confounds. In addition, an improved methodology for an audio-visual perception study is outlined. Experimental evidence from the acoustic and perception studies points to similarities in the phonetic shape of the palatalized consonants of Bulgarian and Russian. However, the phonological distribution of these segments is very different in the respective languages. I argue against a one-to-one mapping between the phonetic and phonological representations of the Bulgarian palatalized consonants. Based on distributional evidence, I propose that at the level of phonology they consist of a sequence of /CjV/.

Speech errors have been utilized since the beginning of the last century to learn more about how speech is produced, both physically and cognitively. Collection of speech errors has progressed from writing down naturally occurring speech errors to recording experimentally induced speech errors to current studies, which are using instrumentation to record acoustic and kinematic information about experimentally induced speech errors. One type of instrumentation being used in articulatory research is ultrasound. Ultrasound is gaining popularity for use by those interested in learning how speech is physically produced because of its portability and noninvasiveness. Ultrasound of the tongue during speech provides visual access to the articulatory movements of the tongue. This study utilizes ultrasound recordings of speech errors in two ways. In Experiment 1, ultrasound images of participants’ tongues were recorded while they read tongue twisters designed to elicit speech errors. The tongue twisters were CVC words or CV syllables with onset velar or alveolar stops. Within the ultrasound video, the angle of the tongue blade and elevation of the tongue dorsum were measured during the onset stop closure. Measurements of tongue twisters were compared to baseline production measures to examine the ways in which erroneous productions differ from normal productions. It was found that an error could create normal productions of the other category (i.e., categorical errors) or abnormal productions that fell outside the normal categories (i.e., gradient errors). Consonant productions extracted from ultrasound video were presented auditory only to naïve listeners in Experiment 2. Listeners heard a variety of normal, gradient error, and categorical error productions. Participants were asked to judge what they heard as the onset sound. Overwhelmingly, the participants heard normal productions as well as gradient error productions as the target sound. Categorical error productions were judged to be different from the target (e.g., velar for alveolar). The only effect of erroneous production appears to be a slight increase in reaction time to respond with a choice of percept, which may suggest that error tokens are abnormal in some way not measured in this study.

The goal of this dissertation was to investigate experimentally the phonetic qualities of the palatalized consonants of Standard Bulgarian. The term ‘palatalized’ refers to consonants (e.g., [tʲ, dʲ]) which are articulated with a secondary palatal gesture superimposed on the primary gesture associated with their plain counterparts (e.g., [t, d]). An acoustic study investigated the claim (Horálek, 1950; Choi, 1998; Ignateva-Tsoneva, 2008) that the palatalized consonants of Standard Bulgarian have undergone depalatalization, which was defined as the decomposition of a secondary palatal [ ʲ ] gesture into a palatal glide [j]. A cross-language comparison was performed. Russian (e.g., [tʲulʲ], ‘silk net’) and British English (e.g., [tju:lip], ‘tulip’) data served as a baseline against which the Bulgarian data (e.g., [tʲul], ‘silk net’) was evaluated. Subjects’ productions of words were recorded for acoustic analyses. The F1, F2 and F3 frequencies of the critical segments were analyzed with a Smoothing Spline ANOVA (Gu, 2002). The analyses indicated that Bulgarian palatalized consonants were identical to those of the Russian palatalized consonants, but different from the consonant-palatal glide sequences of British English. It was concluded that Bulgarian palatalized consonants have not undergone depalatalization. A perception study employed two variations of the gating task (Grosjean, 1980): audio-only and audio-visual. The results of the audio-only experiment indicated that Bulgarian and Russian listeners needed only the information associated with the palatalization portion of the consonant to identify it as palatalized. Bulgarian subjects did not need the transitions with the following vowel (Tilkov, 1983) to identify a consonant as palatalized. The Russian subjects of Richey’s (2000) experiment did not need the formant transitions either to identify the secondary palatal gesture. These findings provide further evidence that the palatalized consonants of the Standard Bulgarian have not undergone depalatalization. The purpose of the audio-visual experiment was to investigate if Bulgarian and Russian listeners use visual information to identify palatalized consonants. The results from this experiment were not as clear cut as those from the audio-only experiment. Factors such as insufficient visual information at earlier gates, as well as attentional load are being considered as possible confounds. In addition, an improved methodology for an audio-visual perception study is outlined. Experimental evidence from the acoustic and perception studies points to similarities in the phonetic shape of the palatalized consonants of Bulgarian and Russian. However, the phonological distribution of these segments is very different in the respective languages. I argue against a one-to-one mapping between the phonetic and phonological representations of the Bulgarian palatalized consonants. Based on distributional evidence, I propose that at the level of phonology they consist of a sequence of /CjV/.

Proefschrift (Ph. D.)--Rijksuniversiteit te Leiden, 1983. / Vita. Text in English; foreword, summary and vita in Dutch. Includes bibliographical references (p. 145-153).